How Blogging Can Help You Cope With Infertility

Time to get some reading time in
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Starting an infertility blog is an easy and great way to cope with the stress of trying to conceive. A large community of women (and men!) are out there, sharing their experiences and receiving support from others like them.

In case you're not familiar with blogging, it's pretty much like a public journal. Journaling has long been suggested as a way to cope with difficult life situations. Writing your feelings, instead of bottling them up inside, can provide a good deal of relief.

The cool thing about blogging is that you can share your feelings with others, and they can provide support through comments and email. It's like a journal that talks back to you.

To get started, try searching for TTC (that stands for "trying to conceive") blogs or fertility forums–there are more sites out there than you might imagine.

Why Start an Infertility Blog?

Why would the world be interested in your fertility ramblings? Are people really interested in your personal life?

First of all, many people out there are interested in reading about your experiences.

Think about how nice it would be to read about how other women dealt with fertility treatments or difficult situations with friends or at work.

No doubt, you can find plenty of TTC blogs that talk about these topics and much more.

You get to see how others cope. Just like you're interested in how others deal with infertility, people out there want to hear and learn from your experiences.

Infertility Blogs and Privacy

But do you really want the world to know your personal life? That's a legitimate concern, but one that isn't too hard to deal with. What you do or don't discuss on your blog is up to you—including your identity. Bloggers may choose to use a pretend name (pseudonym) or only use their first name.

You never need to share specific personal details like where you live or work (in fact, for your family's safety, you probably shouldn't reveal those types of details on your blog).

In fact, you should also think twice before sharing your blog link with your family or friends. Only share the link with people who you won't feel inhibited around, like your absolutely best friend.

For example, if you share the blog with your mom, and you want to write about an argument over "when are you going to give us grandchildren," you might shy away from expressing yourself fully.

Some blogs allow you to password protect your entries, but the majority of bloggers keep their blogs open for the public to read. The problem with password protection is that you might not get as many readers.

However, over time, after you've built a group of steady readers, you might decide to make your blog private. Whatever you decide, just know that the option exists.

Getting the Most out of Your Infertility Blog

You can get a free blog from a number of websites, and they aren't too difficult to set up. You really don't have to be a computer geek to figure them out. Some easy to use website creation sites where you can set up a blog include WordPress, Weebly, Wix, SquareSpace, Blogger, and Tumblr. Almost all of these sites have a free version you can try out.

Once you've got your blog set up, post an introduction. You might write about your fertility experiences so far, or you might talk about yourself in general. Having at least one blog post about yourself will save you from needing to repeat your entire story over and over again.

Then, the next thing I suggest is to let Melissa, better known by her amazing blog Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters, know you exist, so she can add your name to her exhaustive list of fertility bloggers. She maintains a blogroll, which is a list of blogs, on the topic of fertility. You can find other bloggers on that list, and get your blog added.

If you belong to a fertility forum or Facebook group, you may be able to share your blog there. Read the rules of your forum or group first, though. Sometimes, posting a link to your blog is considered "spam." (Even if you're not selling anything on your blog.) 

Read, Comment, Repeat

Once you've got your blog set up, and have posted at least an introduction, you should go and leave comments on other fertility blogs. Reading and leaving comments is the main way people will discover you and come to your blog (assuming you leave a link).

You might think about comments as a great karmic circle of love. The more comments you leave, the more you'll receive back over time.

It takes time to build up a readership. In the beginning, you might feel like you're talking to yourself (which is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, a blog is primarily a journal).

Also, not every blogger will return a comment with a comment. You will probably get your share of nasty comments from people who seem to get their thrills from making people feel bad.

But that's OK, it's survivable. You can keep spreading the comment love anyway, and you can delete unkind comments that people leave on your blog.

Participate in National Infertility Awareness Week's Blog Challenge

Another way to find readers and get inspired as a fertility blogger is to participate in RESOLVE's National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW) Blog Challenge.

NIAW usually falls out in the last week of April, and part of the awareness campaign involves a blog challenge. There is a yearly theme, posted on the NIAW website. Bloggers can then write on that theme and submit their blog posts.

RESOLVE staff and volunteers read over the submitted blogs, and choose their top five. Then, the RESOLVE online community puts in their vote. The winner is awarded the Hope Award for Best Blog.

A Word From Verywell

Despite the potential downsides, writing a TTC blog and joining the infertility blogging community is a positive way to express your feelings, get to know others in similar situations, learn more about infertility, and lend support to others. Plus, it's (usually) free. Does it get better than that?

1 Source
Verywell Family uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
  1. Smyth JM, Johnson JA, Auer BJ, Lehman E, Talamo G, Sciamanna CN. Online Positive Affect Journaling in the Improvement of Mental Distress and Well-Being in General Medical Patients With Elevated Anxiety Symptoms: A Preliminary Randomized Controlled TrialJMIR Ment Health. 2018;5(4):e11290. doi:10.2196/11290


By Rachel Gurevich, RN
Rachel Gurevich is a fertility advocate, author, and recipient of The Hope Award for Achievement, from Resolve: The National Infertility Association. She is a professional member of the Association of Health Care Journalists and has been writing about women’s health since 2001. Rachel uses her own experiences with infertility to write compassionate, practical, and supportive articles.